The iPhone giant beat its own record with high earnings, but predicts slower second quarter

It's the official number crunching day for Apple as it has reported a record-breaking net income of $18.4bn in its first quarterly results of 2016.

When iPhone 6S and 6S Plus hit the shelves during the festive season, naturally Apple's profits soared, generating revenue of $75.9bn. Apple topped its own record compared to this time last year.

The company sold 74.8m iPhones, 16.1m iPads and 5.3m Macs. These sales boosted Apple's margins to 40.1% and international sales accounted for 66% of the quarter's revenue.

"Our team delivered Apple's biggest quarter ever, thanks to the world's most innovative products and all-time record sales of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "The growth of our services business accelerated during the quarter to produce record results, and our installed base recently crossed a major milestone of one billion active devices."

Apple's CFO Luca Maestri added: "Our record sales and strong margins drove all-time records for net income and EPS in spite of a very difficult macroeconomic environment.

Company Articles

"We generated operating cash flow of $27.5 billion during the quarter, and returned over $9 billion to investors through share repurchases and dividends. We have now completed $153 billion of our $200 billion capital return program."

Despite Apple's successful first quarter, it predicts revenue will come in between $50bn and $53bn in the second, which in comparison is down from the $58bn it took from its second quarter in 2015.